Someone asked me why they seem to blow so often. I don't have them but they have them in a Kitchen and are getting fed up with changing them after just months sometimes. No I don't know if they are low voltage or not. I guess they are working at a high temperature or something?
Brian
Are they MR16 (mains) small spots?
If so, buy the replacements from a decent wholesaler like TLC, not a shed.
I've found they last normally - B&Q ones failing in short order.
If they're mains voltage spots (i.e. GU10s) then that's just what the do.
Tim
250V halos are hot and fragile.
fit 12V - longest lasting incandescents I have ever had. I'd guess 5000 actual running hours.
Hi Brian,
Tell them to buy decent ones. I've got a friend with a 4 spot halogen job in the bathroom and she was forever replacing bulbs, mostly from cheap shops. As an experiment I bought a few unbranded and 2 branded ones from Tool station and put them in. The unbranded ones lasted between 10 days and 3 months. Of the Sylvania branded ones, one went at about 20 months and the other is still going at 2 and a half years.
Personally, the idea of 200 watts of lighting for a single room seems excessive. Especially when the young residents are prone to leaving them on all the time!
Scott
On Friday 05 July 2013 10:13 Brian Gaff wrote in uk.d-i-y:
My 12V ones used to blow all the time in the bathroom.
Then I installed a dimmer pull cord with a soft start and whilst they run slightly less bright at max, I have not changed a bulb out of 5 for over a year, maybe 18 months.
As everyone has pointed out the 230V ones have thinner filaments than
12V ones, also if there's a room above the kitchen, then vibrations are likely to waggle the filaments quite a lot ... you can see it in the spot light pattern they produce.+1. It's Sylvania I got from TLC.
I remember noticing this effect with ordinary incandescent bulbs. When we had dimmer switches the bulbs seem to last for ever.
Robert
There is a slight insertion loss with a dimmer as it is in series with the bulb. Reducing how hard a lamp is driven does increase the life - at the expense of efficiency. In other words you get less light for your money.
All the GU10's that I have are on fistures with a touch/remote dimmer. Seems ages since I replaced a bulb. The dimmer gives a soft start.
Just had 10 LED Downlights installed in a new kitchen 8.5 Watts each and a
7 year warranty. Very impressed with the output. (Halers H2 Pro)
The lower powered ones especially so, I have 25W (Osram) spots in a couple of anglepoise type reading lamps and you can see the effect of the element oscillating at 50Hz. It's no wonder they last no time at all. The beefier filament of a 12V 25W is rock solid but unfortunately a retrofit is impractical.
Interestingly I've been using Sylvania ones from Toolstation in our kitchen and found them utter crap - a few months life at the most. B&Q ones have been better, but not much.
+1 on both counts (wasn't my idea to have the bloody things in the first place!).I changed two of them to mains (GU10) LEDs (4W each) from LEDhut a few weeks ago and have been impressed with the lighting - no discernable difference to the old 35W halogens really, though time will tell as to whether they last. I've had one inside a shower light for about a year now; have been happy with that. Anyway, I'm changing the other 4 over in the kitchen this weekend.
May even be worth checking what the supply voltage actually is.
We used to get through 40 W candle bulbs in the living room at about one per month. Then I got a UPS and it went straight into "voltage reduction" mode when powered up. Measured the supply volts, 250... Rang the DNO, they arrived very quickly, checked, confirmed and came back a day or two later to adjust the tapping on our pole transformer. Voltage dropped to 240, the UPS was happy and bulb life greatly extended. B-)
That's odd. Are they subject to cooking heat? Vibration? Or in sealed units perhaps? All four of the ones in the fitting I mentioned have been replaced with Sylvania ones from different batches and have had good life even though they must end up being on 6+ hrs a day. The fitting is an open one where they just sit in free air though.
The secret is to always run them via a dimmer at less than max brightness. You should install extra lights to compensate for the lesser brilliance.
Bill
The 240 ones are total rubbish.
Bill
Blimey, kind of makes you wonder why anyone would fit them in the first place. I think these are indeed mains ones, but seemingly, in order to get that pool of light effect they simply over run the bulbs much as we used to do with those old photographic lights. Maybe they should run them two in series when the bright light is not needed.
I'm sure many got them fitted when it was the trendy thing to do for the look of the kitchen where pools of light in strategic areas looked aesthetically pleasing, at least till you realised ou needed to keep the stepladder eternally in the kitchen, by the sound of this thread. Brian
Dimming a tungsten lamp results in less light per quid of electricity. And the runnings costs far outweigh the replacement costs of the lamp. So rather than run one constantly dimmed, change for a smaller one.
the trouble the is that that are times when you want the brighter light - and it's not there
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